The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1887-03-26
CONTINUOUS CROPPING.
The Growth Of Harley for Thirty Success
sfse Years ON the Same Soil.


DIR. Gilbert has recently been dis
coursing to the students of the Royal
Agricultural College of England about
the growth of barley for thirty years or
more in succession on the same land
and treated in many different ways on
different plots. Two of these plots I'M
manured during the whole period show
how well-tilled soil can bear such a
strain in the course of great fluctuations
due to the varying seasons; the crops
ranged from 6 IA bushels per acre up
to more than 80 bushels.
The average yield of the last sixteen
years was third less than that of the
first sixteen years; but, on the other
hand, the yield of the last four years
was greater than of any other four
years of the last period of sixteen years.
The decline was more rapid than in the
case of wheat, for the reason, DIR. Gilbert
thinks. that barley is naturally a more
shallow feeder than wheat, and its
more limited feeding ground is sooner
exhausted.
MANFRED continuously with farm-yard
manure at the heavy rate of fourteen
tons to the acre the crop increased, but
not in any proportion to the amount of
food supplied. In the first twenty years
that this plot was thus MANFRED 4, 900
pounds of nitrogen were put in the soil,
but less than seventh of this was re-
covered in the crops; if the other six
scvenths were all left in the soil in a
reasonably available condition, it should
be sufficient for the nitrogen supply of
$50 crops of barley as large as the
average annual yield of the preceding
twenty years.
Analysis of the soil at the end of
twenty years of this manuring proving
the presence of over twice as much
nitrogen as in the soil of the unmanured
plot, showed that it was not leached
out. From this time on this plot was
divided; on one half the heavy manur-
ing was continued, while the other half
was left without any manuring; this
half gave much better crops than the
plot which had received no manuring
from the beginning; but the yield
diminished from year to year in spite
Of the very large quantity of nitro
gen accumulated there; this nitro
gen being mostly in insoluble COM
pounds, and unavailable for immediate
use, was less effective than that of the
stable manure, portion of which is
soluble and at once available.
Every decently cared-for soil, and
eve, many soils that have been much
abused, contain large stores Of these
insoluble nitrogen compounds, which
would be worth much to the country if
they would be rapidly utilized. In
some localities the conditions as to soil
or climate, or both, are so favorable to
its conversion into soluble forms that
heterogeneous manures appear to be of
little account; and those who are so
fortunate as to live in such places
preach with increasing assiduity the
entirely untenable and unreasonable
doctrine that heterogeneous manuring is
Of no use anywhere.
A different mode of cropping, with
less heavy manuring, would have told
a different story as to the amount of
nitrogen of the manure recoverable in
the produce; a rotation including, with
the barley, Indian corn, roots or clover,
heavier feeders. and feeding durino a